A Deep Dive Into TikTok For Anyone Over The Age of 22

Last Wednesday, January 29th, 2020, I joined TikTok. Over a month ago, I sat and watched TikTok on my roommate’s phone and enjoyed myself. I downloaded it that night, but had never went on it myself. I’m on Twitter essentially 24/7. I realized that more and more memes on Twitter and Instagram were coming from TikTok. I ended up using the line that I despise when other people say it about Twitter: “I don’t need to go on TikTok because all the best memes show up on Twitter and Instagram anyways.” Literally all of Instagram memes are from Twitter and when people say they aren’t on Twitter because the best tweets end up on Instagram anyways… it drives me insane. There’s so much more to Twitter! It’s an amazing community plus there’s so much more you can learn about people, the news, sports, etc.

On Wednesday night, after realizing my hypocrisy, I decided to go on TikTok and start watching videos. I realized I was right in assuming there was more to TikTok but also very very wrong. I suppose at some point it might expand into something including things like highlight videos from sports or news like on twitter, but it’s more about the community part. My For You page was notably populated by the same ~20 TikTokers. They were all kids from ages 15-22 doing dances together. I always watched dance videos on YouTube – my dream in life is to be a good dancer but unfortunately I’m horrible. I may or may not have tried doing a TikTok dance or two but can’t seem to get down “Renegade”… I’ll stick to “Relationship.” But these people have gotten TikTok famous for the same reason everyone gets famous. They’re hot and talented. It’s honestly more like reality TV than it is like Twitter. Twitter is slightly more about personality in terms of wit and intelligence – not to say these people aren’t smart because they’re at least very savvy in taking advantage of their situation. But on Twitter, a user like Beans After Dark can be famous and go viral but no one knows he’s just an okay-looking guy who happens to be hilarious on twitter (no shots Beans). On Tiktok, their personalities come out in their interactions with each other and how good they look when they’re singing the lyrics to “Krazy” by Likybo. 

I keep saying “they” but haven’t defined who I’m talking about. The people whose lives I’m suddenly immersed in are the inhabitants of the Hype House and the Sway House. The members of these two houses are very good friends and often show up in each other’s videos. The primary members of these two houses are: Charli D’Amelio (15, 20MM followers), Josh Richards (17, 11.8MM followers), Chase Hudson (17, 10.8MM followers), Addison Rae (19, 12.1MM followers), Avani Gregg (17, 9.3MM followers), Dixie D’Amelio (18, 7.5MM followers), Mads Lewis (17, 5.5MM followers), Anthony Reeves (18, 5.2MM followers), Tayler Holder (22, 5.2MM followers), Ondreaz Lopez (22, 4.9MM followers), Tony Lopez (20, 4.0MM followers), Jaden Hossler (18, 3.8MM followers), Kio Cyr (19, 3.3MM followers), Sam Hurley (16, 3.1MM followers), Alex Warren (19, 3.0MM followers), Bryce Hall (20, 2.8MM followers), Griffin Johnson (21, 2.7MM followers), Christopher Romero (18, 2.7MM followers), Nick Austin (19, 1.9MM followers), Daisy Keech (20, 1.6MM followers), Nessa Barrett (17, 1.5MM followers), Thomas Petrou (21, 1.4MM followers), Kouvr Annon (19, 1.4MM followers), Madi Williams (16, 1.1MM), Jack Wright (16, 867.7k followers), Ryland Storms (20, 751.5k followers), Hootie Hurley (20, 671.6k followers), James Wright (16, 486.1k followers). There are other members but these are the most popular ones, who happen to make up 80% of my For You page. You’ll notice lots of sibling pairs… very popular for some reason. For anyone curious, my current favorites to check in on are Charli, Chase, Addison, Dixie, Ryland, Bryce, Anthony but full disclosure this list changed drastically from when I first started watching and was all in on the Lopez brothers so I reserve the right to change this again in the future. 

The two main stars are really Charli and Chase. Charli D’Amelio is one of the most followed people on TikTok. She’s the youngest of the entire crew at just 15 years old. She’s been a competitive dancer her whole life, which means she’s actually a talented dancer. This is the main reason why she rose to fame – her execution at the silly TikTok dances is actually elite. Same for Addison. Charli even performed with Bebe Rehxa at the Jonas Brothers concert as a back up dancer. She’s from Norwalk, CT and goes to King School, which is a private school near where I grew up – we played King in sports. It was known as the fringe private school. She had her first meet and greet at Arch Street, which is the place all the high schoolers in our area go to party and get drunk for the first time. I’m mentioning these things because I think its so entertaining that she’s in my orbit and yet not at all. Anyone older than 22 completely missed the TikTok wave. There are very few of my friends who I can go to to ask questions about the TikTok world so I’ve been learning as I go. Charli joined TikTok in June of 2019 and started posting dancing videos. Starting in October of 2019 she had amassed 100k followers. From October 2019 to now, she has grown to over 20 million followers on TikTok. This was an absurd amount of fame in just three short months; with a New York Times featurette, interviews, red carpets, countless trips to LA to collab with fellow famous TikTokers and of course a fair share of criticism that she has openly struggled with, as any 15 year old would with that kind of shocking rise. She has very impressively addressed these gross criticisms head on, showing off her maturity for her age.

Charli also gained a new boyfriend out of this in 17 year old Chase Hudson. Chase (aka lilhuddy on social media), has also amassed millions of followers on TikTok. He started out young as a YouTuber and currently has over 12 million followers on Tiktok. Chase is one of the two, the other being Thomas Petrou, who took the initiative and started the Hype House. I’m not exactly clear on who is paying for what but I know these two found the house and have it rented out – it’s a huge mansion in LA with tons of light and amenities including a pool. The house has 4 people living there full time and 19 or more rotating in and out who stay to make videos. “Collab houses” like the Hype House are not a new concept – lots of popular YouTubers were on this trend. (Think Jake Paul starting the Team 10 house a few years back). The goal of these houses is to help promote each other and make constant content. The Hype House and its members put out over 100 videos a day and people can’t stop consuming the content.

Part of being involved is knowing the people and their relationships. Somehow I know tons of details of all these people’s lives and honestly it’s not enough. I’m just so curious as to how they all got here… 100% of the people I know and watch are 22 or under which means they should be in college or high school, yet they’re making insane amounts of videos and all together. Yes, there are lots of airport ones too, which tells me they’re traveling back and forth to LA but there’s never any mention of where they’re from. For example, Charli and Dixie still live in CT and go to school, but frequently fly out to LA on breaks or weekends to make videos at the Hype House. But what about everyone else? I understand of course everyone wants to ride this wave because who knows how long this will last, but I’d be curious to know more about their lives than just their relationships… But I guess I can get into that too. At the moment the couples are: Charli and Chase, Addison and Bryce, Josh and Nessa, Alex and Kouvr, Chris and Madi, Jaden and Mads and lotssss of rumors about the others, especially Dixie and Tayler.

I’m still trying to figure out TikTok trends. I know there are lots of common sayings like “CEO of [enter anything here]” or “[x] person is punching the air right now” but the weirdest part of TikTok is that there are just the same videos over and over and over and over again. TikTok has a very specific playlist that everyone agrees to follow in the moment and songs can change and update based on any new dances that become viral. The current playlist includes dances and videos to: “Sugar” by Brockhampton, “High Fashion” by Roddy Rich, “The Box” by Roddy Rich, “Krazy” by Likybo, “No Idea” by Don Toliver, “Yummy” by Justin Bieber, “Roxanne” by Arizona Zervas, “One Wish” by Ray J, “Suicidal” by YNW Melly, “Blueberry Faygo” by Lil Mosey, “Relationship” by Young Thug, “Lottery (Renegade)” by K Camp, “Whachu Know” by Bhad Babbie and a handful of others. Basically they’re all inappropriate rap songs that are perfect to dance to. They’re also insanely catchy – I didn’t know any of these songs (besides Yummy and Roxanne) before I started going on TikTok and now my Spotify playlist has all of them. I catch myself singing these songs randomly all day at work. TikTok is actively responsible for blowing songs up – Bieber’s campaign for Yummy literally was on TikTok as he promoted people making up dances to it and two different dances for the song became insanely popular, granting him hundreds of thousands of streams. Genius – and the power of TikTok, I guess. 

The other crazy part is that they all now are popular on other platforms. Of course they’re all on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Snapchat, like all young people are, but they’re actually verified on these platforms as well with millions of followers!!! They are legitimately famous. Dixie and Addison were in NYC last weekend and were actually swarmed by fans at the Vessel – needing security teams just to go shopping. They’re killing the ad game too, sporting Gucci, Chanel, Balenciaga everything, with sweatpants that cost more than my apartment. The money they’re earning is essentially unlimited at this point. Most have signed with talent agencies. The D’Amelios signed with UTA and the members of the Sway house all were signed by TalentX. They all wear fanny packs over one shoulder so I guess that’s cool again? Honestly I can’t keep up. Other trends they also have made popular that I think are very weird but add to their “looks” are dangly earrings for boys (literally all the boys I mentioned above have their ears pierced), tooth gems (both girls and boys have these), girls wear sweatpants and insanely short crop tops that should probably be qualified as long bras, and dye their hair other colors (mostly pink or blue). It’s just a completely different look than anyone I know or knew growing up looked like. It’s very edgy and artsy. I especially don’t get the tooth gem… So many of these trends would’ve made you a total weirdo 9 years ago (SOS I was 15 9 years ago….) but now they make you extremely cool. The technical term for this style is “e-boy” or “e-girl” which is a combination of skater, hip-hop, anime, goth vibes and more. God I sound old… but I want to be clear I’m not saying I think they’re weird I’m just observing the differences in what it means to be cool now versus in 2013. They seem much more confident in their style and vibes than we did but maybe that’s just social media perception or a function of my lack of confidence when I was in high school – just another therapy session through an OFD post!

Of course there are tons of other famous TikTokers besides just the members of the Hype House and Sway House but these are just the ones that flood my For You page and have gained my attention through all their collabs, relationship drama, and continuous non-stop content and repetitive videos. After a week, I might delete the app. I’m far too addicted and involved for only having been in this world for 7 days. It’s just genuinely fun and entertaining! I appreciate the hustle and am thrilled that this wasn’t popular when I was in high school. I can only imagine how depressed I’d be when all the hot girls from my school became TikTok famous and I didn’t. Hopefully I can move on from this drama and obsession because I need to sleep. If not, maybe I’ll be back with an update soon – I still am dying to know more details re: the money they’re generating and how they’re splitting it up amongst themselves, what their life plans are and if they’re even going to school.